Ash moved without a sound.
The moss here was thicker, muffling even Elira's barefoot steps behind him. He checked the trail — old claw marks gouged through bark, dried sap glinting amber in the low light. The forest wasn't reacting. No birds. No breeze. Just a stillness that pressed against the skin.
He didn't like it.
"Elira," he said, barely above a whisper.
She was two steps behind, cloak wrapped tight. "Yeah?"
"You still dont feel anything divine?"
She hesitated. "No… but the threads here are warped. The ambient flow is off."
He crouched and touched the soil. Crushed prints. Spaced too wide for any normal creature. Too deep, too uneven. Whatever made them didn't walk — it dragged.
"Elira."
"What."
"Climb a tree."
"…Why should i?"
A low creak rolled through the trees ahead. Not wind. Not wood strain. Something moving.
Ash stood. "Because that sound wasn't friendly."
Another step. Closer. Measured. Heavy.
Elira stared into the treeline. "That's not a monster. That's—"
Branches exploded outward.
Something vast and low barreled through the brush — not a beast, not a thing, just mass. Limbs like snapped root clusters. A mouth that split sideways. Bark-fused muscle. Half its body shimmered with sigil corruption.
Ash didn't think.
He shoved Elira back and ran sideways — full sprint, breaking line of sight.
The creature charged.
Ash moved low through the underbrush, breath steady. The creature's bulk crashed through the gully behind him — louder than it should've been. It wasn't just big. It wanted to be heard.
Distraction tactic. Or confidence.
He didn't care which.
Thirty meters. Ash slipped behind a stone outcropping, crouched, and waited. He tightened his grip on the same stick he'd sharpened a nights ago. Splintered at the tip. Worn smooth where he'd held it. Primitive. But it had already killed once.
The ground trembled. The thing was close.
Ash shifted his weight, balanced low. He could hear Elira yelling something — faint, distant, blocked by trees. He tuned it out. Everything narrowed to breath, grip, timing.
It came into view.
Too Massive, bent forward on too many limbs. Not charging now — hunting. Root-tendrils scraped the dirt. Half of its face was missing. Replaced with scarred bark and pulsing flesh. Whatever magic it fed on had twisted it past recognition.
Ash waited until it turned.
One breath.
Then he moved.
A sprint. Angled downhill. He aimed for the blind side, near the ruptured jaw. No hesitation. No shout. Just motion.
It reacted faster than it should have — body twisting with a wet, cracking snap — but Ash was already beneath it. He slid under the front limbs, planted a foot, and drove the sharpened stick up into the eye socket.
The impact rang through his arm. The creature screamed — a raw, wet howl that rattled the trees.
And something inside him snapped.
Not pain. Not fear.
Just a cold jolt, like instinct waking up after years asleep.
His vision narrowed. Motion slowed. Lines sharpened. His body moved without thought — clean, practiced, in sync with the kill.
The stick broke as the beast thrashed — splinters tearing from his hand — but he was already behind it. No time to process. No time to question. Just the next step.
The creature flailed, limbs slamming into trees, marked skin flickering with dying sparks. Sap-blood sprayed in arcs. Its movements grew erratic, desperate.
Ash didn't flinch.
He crouched. Picked up a stone. When it turned, blindly lashing—
He stepped in. Rammed the rock into the soft tissue below its eye.
A wet crack. A twitch.
Then silence.
The weight collapsed all at once — not slow, not dramatic. Just dead.
Ash stood over it, chest rising, breath steady.
The stick was useless now — a broken shard, slick with blood.
Behind him, branches snapped. Elira burst through the underbrush, panting. "What the actual divine hell was—"
She stopped. Saw the body. Saw him.
Ash didn't turn.
"I moved before I thought," he said. "That's not normal."
Elira took a slow step forward. Her voice had lost its usual tone. "No. It's not."
She looked at the corpse. The broken stick still lodged where the eye used to be.
"Ash… you're not normal. And this one—this wasn't some forest pest. It's ten times bigger than the last one. And corrupted. I've never seen a Branchgnawer mutate like this."
Ash glanced at her. "You keep talking like you've seen these before ."
"I have," she said. "Plenty of times."
He tilted his head. "But you didn't know what a microwave was."
Elira blinked. "Microwa—what does that have to do with anything?"
"You recognize corruption in an off-map forest, but you don't know anything about Earth. Doesn't add up."
She looked away, cloak shifting. "Earth's mostly off-limits. . Your world doesn't have Sigils. No belief flow. No magic system to map. It's like—like watching a silent movie through a locked door."
Ash didn't respond. He just stared at the corpse again.
"Besides," she added, quieter now, "I wasn't supposed to interact. Just process your soul and leave."
He looked at her.
"You failed," he said flatly.
She huffed. "Yes. Thank you. I'm painfully aware."
He looked at her, eyes calm. "What just happend to me?."
She hesitated, gaze flicking to the corpse, then back to him.
"I think…" she said quietly, "you just awakened your Sigil."
Ash crouched over to the corpse of the Branchgnawer — no, not that it mutated — it was something larger now, cracked and slumped against the tree it had shattered through. A third eye hung half-lidded on its brow, split from the bone by the final strike. The sharpened stick had snapped inside the socket.
Elira stepped closer, eyeing the body. The air still buzzed faintly — like the echo of something divine had brushed the forest and left.
"Okay," she muttered. "Okay. Like i just said. I think you just awakened your Sigil. That was definitely a skill. medium-grade, instinctual, belief-anchored... and stronger than it should be for a first use."
Ash didn't react. Just scanned the tree line again. Still nothing moving.
She frowned. "Didn't you feel it? That moment? Like a pressure drop and then clarity?"He didn't answer. But his knuckles flexed.
Elira tilted her head. "Right. Cool. Emotionally stunted. I forgot." She dusted off her sleeve. "Well, congratulations. You probably just triggered your first combat skill."
Ash's gaze shifted slightly. " Okay tell me about Sigils and skills."
Elira blinked. Then sighed. "Right. Okay. Crash course."
She held up a finger.
"Every soul in this world has a Sigil — think of it like… a spiritual fingerprint. It shows who you are, who you've become, and what you believe in."
Ash didn't blink.
"Skills aren't just trained like techniques. They emerge when belief meets action. You survive a moment, you commit to an instinct, and if it lines up with your identity, the Sigil reacts."
Ash looked at the broken stick. "So I believed I could kill it, and the world gave me permission?"
Elira looked mildly horrified. "That is a terrifying way to phrase it. But… sort of, yeah."
She pointed vaguely at the gory remains. "That wasn't just a good move. That was a skill activating — probably something like Combat Reflex or Momentum Breaker. The name doesn't matter right now. What matters is it came from you, not from training or chanting."
Ash didn't speak.
Elira crossed her arms. "There are three main types of skills. Basic techniques that anyone can do. Belief-based skills, like what you just used — rare, but natural. And divine traits, which are—" she hesitated "—complicated."
He caught that pause.
"Belief-based skills can be seen through Sigil Mirrors. Or read, by certain divine beings who still have access." She gave a weak smile. "Used to be one of those."
Ash crouched near the body again. "So that's it a world of magic and skills great!."
Ash grunted.
Elira stepped closer and looked at him. "Most people get maybe one real belief skill in their whole life. Two if they're lucky. You just pulled one off with a stick and no gear."
She smiled faintly. "You're either incredibly adaptable… or extremely broken."
Ash stood. "Bit of both."
He walked past her, calm again.
Elira followed. "That's fair."
Ash crouched again beside the corpse.
Elira watched from a cautious distance. "You're not going to touch it, are you?"
He didn't answer. Just used the broken end of the stick to lift the creature's arm — or what passed for one. The joint was thick with fibrous muscle. Bark-textured hide peeled away in ridges, revealing a dense layer of sinew.
"Gods, you are going to touch it," Elira muttered.
Ash reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a flint shard. He started cutting.
She made a noise halfway between a gasp and a gag. "Why."
"Might be worth something," he said. "The hide's tough. Claw structure's dense. Could be used for tools or trade. Or bait."
Elira covered her mouth. "You're skinning a sap-bleeding branchgnawer, for cash."
"Not for cash. For options."
He held up one of the claws — thick, curved, faintly blackened at the tip. It looked like obsidian. Almost elegant, if you ignored the fact it had tried to kill him.
Elira winced. "Do you always do this?"
"Do what."
"Salvage corpses like a foraging warlock."
Ash shrugged. "Old habit."
She blinked. "From your world?"
He didn't answer.
She let it drop.
Ash finished cutting the eye ridge loose — the hard shell around the skull had a layered grain like compressed wood. He tied it with a strip of bark cord and stuffed it into the pouch.
His fingers brushed something solid just beneath the inner ridge — not bone. Not flesh. A pocket of hardened tissue, heat-warped from inside. He dug carefully, split it open with the tip of his knife.
A faint glow.
A Stone.
It pulsed dimly in the low light — dark violet at the core, ringed with veins like scorched silver. Mutated. Probably unstable.
Ash turned it over once in his hand, then wiped it clean and slipped it into his pouch.
Then he stood.
"Elira."
"Hm?"
"Where's the nearest town."
She hesitated. "There should be one northeast of here. Not big. Probably has a guild post and maybe a shrine stub if the locals still pretend to care about the divine."
He adjusted the sling strap on his shoulder. "Let's go."
She blinked. "Just like that?"
"I've got nothing. No shelter, no gear. If I want answers or supplies, I'll need money. If I want money, I'll need people."
"But you hate people."
"Doesn't mean they're not useful."
Elira raised a finger, paused, then let it drop. "...Fair."
They started walking, boots crunching over wet leaves and root threads. Elira kept glancing at the pouch like something inside it might bite through the leather.
Ash didn't notice.
He was already thinking two steps ahead. Location. Terrain. Threat proximity. If this was the kind of creature forced out of its usual nest, the bigger danger was still somewhere behind them.
They moved east, toward whatever passed for civilization.
Ash didn't speak again. Not about the corpse. Not about the feeling. Not about what had woken in his bones.
But in the distance — just past the ridge — faint smoke curled above the trees.
A town.
A guild.
Maybe answers.
Or just more things trying to kill him.